John Battelle Interviews Gary Flake

John Battelle has a good interview with Gary Flake, a Technical Fellow over in MSN: http://battellemedia.com/archives/002471.php.

It reminded me of a relatively recent conversation I had with some other folks that joined the company within the past 5 years.

Basically, a few of us were sitting around a table, swapping stories about how we came to the company.

Some folks talked about knowing that they wanted to come at Microsoft. They'd waited on line for Windows 95 and they'd knocked on Microsoft's doors come recruiting time.

My experience was pretty different. I grew up as a dedicated Mac user (which still holds true today). I came from a college environment that was violently anti-Microsoft and pro-BSD and pro-Linux. When I was first contemplating coming to Microsoft in my senior year, I had a lot of angst about going to the "evil empire."

That said, the reason I came (and the reason I stay) is because of the people. I think Gary pretty much nailed it:

Let's talk about people as a preface to culture, because I want to get the "evil" thing out of the way. I know the reputation that MS has with some communities. I was hacking Linux in the early nineties, I have a four digit Slashdot userid, and I've personally written over 100,000 lines of open source code. I say all of this to qualify my opinion. Being new to MS, the biggest surprise for me was the people. I knew they were smart. I knew they were driven. I knew they were competitive. But I had no idea they would also collectively tend towards kindness, openness, self-criticism, passion, righteousness, and even uncertainty. These are great people -- from the executive team down to the rank and file -- these are simply wonderful people in every way.

Amen.  Another quote which rings true:

Okay, now I know I am sounding like a corporate drone and I am well aware that for every example above, there are plenty of people in the valley that will bitch about my characterization. When you assume evil, then an ecosystem looks less than well-intentioned. When you assume goodness, then an ecosystem looks like benevolence. The truth is more complex and vastly more interesting.

I'm always a little amused when a random act of stupidity by some random Product Manager in some random product is taken as Microsoft corporate policy. As it turns out, if you go in looking for evil, it's usually pretty easy to find it.

Anyway -- a good interview. Kudos to Gary for his openness and honesty (both good and bad).